RE: what's legal and what's not

["Pete Klammer" <pklammer@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

[responding in a rush ...]

A one-way lookup is OK, as long as it is not reversible or invertible.

A voter ID can lookup to a district/precinct code string, 
And a district/precinct code string can lookup to a ballot style,
And that can print a ballot.
Then you need the ballot style to remain with the ballot, to know how to
assign and tally the marks.  But there should be lots of ballots of the same
style (unless there were a perverse Venn-diagram intersection of precincts,
fire districts, water districts, parks & recreation, etc., that diced ballot
styles down to one per person -- far-fetched), so if you pull up a ballot
with STYLE barcode only, you should have a hard time telling whether it was
me or one of my 10 or 80 neighbors sharing the same ballot style.  Not much
problem with that.

But if unique serialization stays with each cast ballot, and say, some
recreational-beverage-associated candidate could conceivably let it be known
that free cases or kegs of refreshment might be available to serial numbers
found to have his vote on them, then I've got an incentive to quench my
thirst by copying down my serial number for later redemption.  Or other less
far-fetched schemes (I don't have enough practice at this).

Best,

--
Pete Klammer, P.E. / ACM(1970), IEEE, ICCP(CCP), NSPE(PE), NACSE(NSNE)
   3200 Routt Street / Wheat Ridge, Colorado 80033-5452
 (303)233-9485 / Fax:(303)274-6182 / Mailto:PKlammer@xxxxxxx
   "Either Be Good, or Else Be Careful, but Do Have Fun! "

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Tiger [mailto:paul.tiger@xxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2004 1:45 PM
To: Al Kolwicz; Ralph Shnelvar
Cc: Pete Klammer; Joe Pezzillo; Paul Walmsley
Subject: FW: what's legal and what's not

With all of the traffic on CVV I think that this got by-passed. So I am
resending it to the people that I think are the most interested.

The old serial number would have difficult to trace back to any voter. The
barcode is much easier. Especially if BallotNow is used. Does anyone know
about how BallotNow is setup internally.
My voter ID is 0207861 and that correlates to my precinct number 4171207010.
If BallotNow only needs these two items, probably only my voter ID to
produce a ballot for me, what guarantee to we have, if any, that the
software can't be used to retrack my ballot to my name once it has been
cast?

I don't care, but obviously others do.

paul

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Tiger [mailto:paul.tiger@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2004 1:42 AM
To: 'Citizens for Verifiable Voting'
Subject: what's legal and what's not

Thanks Pete,

Now we're back on track - so I changed the thread name.

Al was right, I was not. There is a barcode in the lower right that
identifies the ballot. It doesn't identify the voter.

Since there was a sequence number on the old ballots (punch card type) and
it did essentially the same thing - ID'd the ballot, I'm not clear that
there is a problem that is a new one. If there is a problem then it always
existed, at least since the late 70s when balloting became computerized in
the tallying area.

I've talked to Al about this topic before and I am not sure when it became
an issue for him. It didn't seem to be one before. With the old system
(punch cards) once the stubs were torn off at the precinct polling place,
then there was no way to track the sequence number to the voter. The stub
had both a sequence number and a voter number. The voter number was also
sequential starting at one for each precinct, while the sequence number
started somewhere in the thousands or hundreds depending on what precinct
you were in.
Polling judges would record the voter number in the polling book next to a
person's name. This way if a voter called and said that they hadn't voted or
tried to vote at the clerks office, the precinct could be checked with to
see if there was a voter number for them in the polling book at that
location. It was simple and easy and worked well. Voter fraud could be
stopped before it started.

Now our situation is that the barcode is on the ballot, thus the sequence
number. My question would be is how is this sequence number being stored in
the BallotNow system? Is it related to a voter by name? Or is the BallotNow
system simply designed to only record the information that a ballot was
printed for the given voter and the sequence number is stored elsewhere?
If the sequence number is tied to the voter in the BallotNow system, then we
have a potential problem with ballot secrecy.

I still don't see how we have a problem with ballot fraud concerning the
sequence number. If someone could explain that issue, perhaps Al, then I am
all ears. I think that many of us would like to hear what that scenario
looks like.
Then maybe we can examine what is legal and what is not. I don't think that
I've heard anything about ballot sequence numbers that makes them illegal.

Personally, as many have heard me say before, I could care less who knows
how I voted. Ballot secrecy only came into being at the end of the civil
war. Before then you would stand in front of a polling judge who would ask
you who you were voting for and you stated as much out loud for all to hear.
I'd be okay with going back to that.

Paul Tiger

-----Original Message-----
From: Pete Klammer [mailto:pklammer@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2004 1:10 AM
To: 'Citizens for Verifiable Voting'
Subject: Snakes bellies and name calling

This is getting pathetic ...

Al Kolwicz, who was there, is known by me to be very specific, detailed,
accurate, and technically careful.  If his insistence on high standards from
public officials rubs them the wrong way, that shouldn't be mistaken for
pointless badgering.

Look, either the ballot barcodes are alike on multiple ballots, in which
case they may identify ballot styles, or else they are unique per ballot, in
which case they individuate voters.  I can't see Al confusing one situation
for the other.

Now, just because YOU have no problem with your ballot being individually
serialized, does not make it right or legal.  I can find someone who doesn't
have a problem with paperless electronic DREs, that doesn't make it right or
legal.  I can find someone who doesn't have a problem with voting on
Microsoft Internet Explorer, or by touch-tone phone; your acquiescence to
inferior vulnernerable voting systems doesn't make them right or legal.  It
merely identifies your poor grasp of the implications and inability to
intelligently comprehend the consequences.  Just because you can't figure it
out, doesn't justify name calling.

 --
Pete Klammer / ACM(1970), IEEE, ICCP(CCP), NSPE(PE), NACSE(NSNE)
    3200 Routt Street / Wheat Ridge, Colorado 80033-5452
  (303)233-9485 / Fax:(303)274-6182 / Mailto:PKlammer@xxxxxxx
 Idealism may not win every contest, but that's not what I choose it for!